ANKARA – Chinese researchers have developed the world’s first DNA “movable-type” inkjet printer — a breakthrough development to tackle the data storage crisis, state media reported Tuesday.
The game-changing innovation — a machine with a footprint of 6 square meters (65 square feet) — is poised to far outpace its predecessors in speed and “dramatically” slash costs.
Developed by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Bi Sheng-1 machine can encode digital files into genetic material with high decoding accuracy, a milestone that could play a pivotal role in addressing humanity’s looming data crisis.
As the customary silicon-based storage is struggling to keep pace, buckling under the strain of escalating energy demands and hitting physical limitations, global data production is projected to surge to 394 zettabytes by 2028. One zettabyte is equal to 1 trillion gigabytes.
Researchers have long recognized DNA, the blueprint of life, as a remarkable natural storage medium.
A single kilogram of DNA has an incredible space to store all the world’s data and remain stable for centuries without degrading, according to a paper published in the journal Advanced Science.
Existing DNA storage technologies, nonetheless, similar to traditional block printing, synthesize lengthy DNA strands for each piece of information, making the process time-consuming, expensive and unable to reuse common elements efficiently.
In a demonstration, the Bi Sheng-1 printed 168,000 DNA movable type blocks in five hours, using a multi-step enzyme-linking process. It encoded 43.7 KB of data from four files at a speed of 4 bytes per second.
In contrast, the available cutting-edge DNA synthesizers currently on the market have a writing efficiency of just 0.49 bytes per second. (Anadolu)
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